Word: cholerae
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...Assisted perhaps by Quotations from Chairman Mao, the Pakistanis seem to have invented a new kind of warfare. Under the title of "internal affair," they let loose a reign of terror on East Pakistan [June 21]. Injured, starving, cholera-ridden refugees have since poured into India...
...Gandhi's making. More than 6,000,000 refugees have fled to India since the Pakistani government, based in West Pakistan, began a savage campaign of repression and terror in East Pakistan last March. The cost of feeding and sheltering the refugees-and caring for thousands of cholera victims-will total at least $400 million in the first six months...
Token Cremation. The polluted drinking water, the lack of sanitation and the officials' inability to inoculate the millions of refugees have contributed to the spread of cholera, particularly in West Bengal. A bacterial disease common to India and Pakistan, cholera causes severe vomiting and diarrhea, which bring dehydration and death. Those afflicted can usually be saved by replenishing the bodily fluids through intravenous injections or drinking large doses of a solution of salts, baking soda and glucose. But the flood of refugees is just too great to be handled by beleaguered medical teams...
...roads the refugees travel are littered not only with clothes and discarded household goods, but with bodies of cholera victims left by those too frightened of the disease to bury their own dead. Although Hindus practice cremation, many of the bodies are merely singed with two burning sticks and then left for the hovering vultures or wild dogs to pick apart. Even when the corpses are buried, they are often dug up by carrion eaters. Police have their hands full trying to prevent refugees from tossing corpses into the rivers. In the overcrowded hospitals, the sick and dying are jammed...
...West Bengal's overflowing health centers, a 45-year-old rice farmer watched his infant son continue to suckle after his mother had died of cholera. "My wife is dead," the man said numbly. "Three of my children are dead. What else can happen?" With the refugees spreading through the Indian states, carrying the disease with them, the epidemic could rapidly afflict hundreds of thousands of Indians. For this reason, Indian authorities are trying to prevent the East Pakistanis from entering Calcutta, where uncounted millions already live on the streets in squalid conditions that guarantee an annual cholera epidemic...